


Playing Dress Up

by EnglandsGray



Category: Cars (Movies)
Genre: Humanized
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-04
Updated: 2019-06-04
Packaged: 2020-04-07 17:04:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19089343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EnglandsGray/pseuds/EnglandsGray
Summary: Three first races at Thomasville Speedway.The Fabulous Hudson Hornet, back in the day.Cruz Ramirez, standing in for Storm, during the third movie.Lightning McQueen, leading the first race in the Hudson Hornet Racing Series, sometime after the end of the third movie.Humanized.





	Playing Dress Up

 

You roll the car into starting position. You’re at the back of the pack, but at least you’re in it. You flex and fold your fingers, stretching out the tightness of new gloves and anticipation. You tip your ears to each shoulder, finally happy with the fit of the helmet but finding the collar of your navy-blue racing jacket as unfamiliar and unyielding as the gloves. So you quickly pull down the zipper an inch and adjust the fabric away from your already sweat-beaded skin. Heat and nerve. Pretty much sums up racing. Number 51 is embroidered on the fabric in high-contrast white. Moonlight on the trail. No mistake. The car’s factory paint-job isn’t six months old but you’ve already seen fit to emblazon it with your trademark. Your intention. The Fabulous Hudson Hornet. All’s left to do now is to find your window, work your way through the field until you’re out in front by a mile. The whispers have you marked for arrogant. But you’ll prove yourself confident and rightly so.

 

Give them a darn good reason to paint a cobalt, white and gold target on your back.

 

 

When you hear ‘Go!’ through your open window you’re already a couple hundred yards ahead. An unfair start doesn’t count. It’s a set-up. Still, you ease into your start then you’re gone. A week ago that wouldn’t have been possible. And somehow you thought you were at the top of your game; the best in the business. Far as you’re concerned the best in the only business that matters is roaring along behind you, experience and talent bearing down on you in a way which makes you doubt the importance of the reading on your speedometer. Number 95. It’s printed on your suit in several places. It’s printed on your contract. The unmistakable shade your bedroom walls had been plastered in, your wardrobe full of Walmart franchised t-shirts. You chose yellow when you chose your car because it suited your personality like red suited his. Sunshine and optimism. And cowardice. Now that paint is sprayed and taped over in black; #2.0 your latest persona to mould and project. It’s your job. Those who can’t, right? You cast your eye quickly to your rear-view, mirroring his drifting technique, improving your own even as you’re executing the manoeuvre seconds ahead of him.

 

He’s teaching you here, and God, you want to learn it. You want to live it.

 

 

You’re in pole because of your name, the decals on your car and the sheer luck of your début season – because of what, and who, you represent Not on merit. And that’s a whole new world. The first race day at the speedway in decades and the stands are packed out. The field is full – history lined up behind you waiting to kick you in the trunk. Your roll your shoulders in your jumpsuit. It’s comfortable. A second skin. You never thought another could be, but it took barely any time for you to stop packing the red ones. These were big, blue, shoes to step into, but they were the best, and you were – are – the luckiest. You’ve specified a starting pistol, the others in agreement, and the satisfying, heart-kicking crack of it snaps your focus to the dirt. Real racing. Inches apart, never touching. Hey – there’s some serious heart, soul and dollars in these heritage paint-jobs. The Hudson Hornet Racing Series would be an arena of class, decorum and fierce, furious skill. Honed, older, wiser. Maybe you were getting there, too. Maybe you’d grown up. Enough to shrug off the cobalt and reclaim the red.

 

Not a brand, not a tribute. You.

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thankyou for reading, I hope you enjoyed.


End file.
